Dancing With Keenan

Chapter Thirteen - Kalya

When I woke up again, Keenan was sitting absolutely still in the chair by my bed. I'd been moved to a private room, but I couldn't tell if I was still in the maternity room.

I hoped not.

Being in such a room of hope would be too much for me. As it was, I only had a single second of peace before my reality came crashing down on me.

Kalya is dead.

It repeated in my head over and over again until I could hear was that sickening mantra.

Kalya is dead.

"No," I whimpered.

Keenan grabbed my hand and whispered words that were meant to soothe, but there was no soothing me. My heart had shattered in that operating room, and I felt like I was in hell. The beeping of the heart monitor told me I was alive, but the grief and the guilt that surrounded was enough to prove that I was in a living hell.

I wanted to die.

I had never even seen my daughter. I had never held her or sang to her or looked into her eyes.

"I need to see her," I told Keenan, my voice hoarse from all the screams.

He nodded and stepped out of the room.

A few minutes later, he returned with a nurse who helped me into a wheelchair. Keenan pushed me down the never-ending corridors of the hospital, my sense of dread growing with every moment.

Was I really going to do this?

The elevator dinged as the doors opened.

I was suddenly unsure.

Did I really want to do this?

The little metal box would take me down, down to the basement of the hospital, where my precious little daughter lay dead.

Could I do this?

Tears dripped down my cheeks. The pain was a physical ache in my chest, scooping out all of my organs and leaving me hollow inside. I couldn't feel anything beyond the pain.

The elevator dinged again, and Keenan pushed me into another sterile hallway. The nurse led us down to the end of the corridor, where a single metal door awaited us. The sign read, "MORGUE," in the same drab print as all of the other signs. The nurse punched in her code, and there was a click as the door unlocked.

"Ready for this?" Keenan whispered.

"Never," I told him, in a voice that I didn't even recognize.

Who had I become today?

What had happened to the real me? To the Delilah that was ready for anything and scared of nothing?

Had she died with Kalya, an imposter taking over what had once been my heart and soul?

Keenan squeezed my shoulder as he brought the wheelchair to a stop. The room was almost cold, the whirring of the air conditioning seeming to mock me. Three metal tables lined the center of the room, all but one of them empty. Sterile white and gray counters hugged three walls. I looked at the walls and the floors ⎼ anywhere but the metal table in front of me.

I avoided it for as long as I could.

No one rushed me.

The room was silent save for the air conditioning and my ragged breathing.

I finally turned my gaze to the tiny sheet that was lain on the table. It covered an even tinier lump that I knew must've been Kalya. My breath caught in my throat. My heart felt it like it stopped. I nodded at the nurse who was waiting with her hands poised above the edge of the sheet.